


Three

by Bumblie_Bee



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:15:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23096200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bumblie_Bee/pseuds/Bumblie_Bee
Summary: Three casts sit on Evan’s shelf. One is small and blue and covered with the untidy scrawl of six-year-olds. The second is bigger and white and defaced with one name scrawled across the front in bold black marker. The third is new. It’s freshly cut from his arm.Three casts sit on Evan’s shelf. Together, they tell a tale.
Relationships: Evan Hansen & Connor Murphy, Evan Hansen & Heidi Hansen, Evan Hansen & Jared Kleinman, Evan Hansen/Connor Murphy
Comments: 30
Kudos: 131





	1. Age Six

The first time Evan Hansen broke his arm, he was six, and he broke it falling off Jared Kleinman’s trampoline.

(Or being pushed off Jared Kleinman’s trampoline, if he’s going to be precise.)

He’d cried afterwards, tears more from the shock than pain, as Jared had knelt beside him on the dry summer grass and apologised over and over and asked him not to tell because it really, really had been an accident. Evan had known it had been lie; the push had been on purpose, his resulting tumble from the trampoline probably less so, but he hadn’t told anyway.

Janet Kleinman had arrived outside at some point with a half-changed baby Ellie perched on her hip and fussed over his bumped head and sore wrist and then carried him inside and settled him to the sofa with a bag of frozen peas on his poorly arm and Jared at his side. They’d sat close enough their shoulders almost touched and watched cartoons in a subdued sort of silence, both a little pale and one a little guilty, until Evan’s mom finished work and came to collect him. 

Janet had gone back to the kitchen after they were settled in front of the telly where she’d had a poorly whispered discussion with David about whether to call Heidi and let her know what had happened or not. Evan had tried not to listen because his mommy told him it was rude to eavesdrop and he didn’t want Janet to think him rude, but he’d overheard all the same.

He wasn’t sure what hurt more, his bumped head and poorly arm or his suddenly too tight chest when David had pointed out to a conflicted Janet that Evan had cried sure, but he was a crier, he’d cried about lesser things than a fall before and so was likely just shaken and upset and making a fuss.

It hurt more when Janet had agreed.

Heidi had given him a hug as usual when she’d arrived to pick him up, and when she’d learnt what happened, she’d kissed the top of his head and told him how brave he’d been. She’d gently examined his arm, frowning lightly at his quiet resistance, and then told Janet she should probably get him home. Janet had agreed easily and then ruffled his hair and told him she hoped he was feeling better soon and despite her agreement with her husband earlier that he’d been making a fuss, there was a little sincerity to her tone and a little discomfort and Evan wondered if she was feeling guilty.

Jared had still been feeling guilty, Evan knew, because the boy who’d said he was no longer a baby and too big for hugs had pulled him close as he’d said goodbye and then poorly whispered yet another apology into his ear in a tone much more serious than Evan had thought he was capable of.

They’d gone home after leaving the Kleinman’s and Evan had quietly watched an episode of the Simpsons whilst his mom had fried sausages and boiled then mashed potatoes, and then, when Mark had finally returned, he’d obediently joined his parents at the dining table. The sausages had been nice, and the mash too, and he’d picked at them despite not really being hungry but then Mark had criticised him for not using his cutlery properly, his left hand should be holding his knife, not hiding in his lap, and then scolded him for making a fuss when Heidi had frowned and explained about his fall and Evan’s day had taken yet another downhill turn.

He’d had ended up crying at his father’s words and unsavoury tone and that hadn’t helped at all.

Afterwards, as she was putting him to bed, Heidi had pulled him close and tried to convince him in a firm, soft tone that the dinner-time argument hadn’t been his fault at all. She told him he wasn’t to blame himself for it or listen to his dad’s silly words, and to remember that they both loved him all the way to the moon and back again and always would no matter what.

His mommy loved him, Evan knew, she told him so every night and every morning before school and sometimes in the middle of the day if they were both home then, too. He wasn’t so sure about Mark though. Mark didn’t tell Evan he loved him. He didn’t play trucks or trains or take him to the park like his mom did either; he was always too busy, he said.

He wasn’t too busy to watch baseball or see his lady friend or frown at Evan and tell him to stop crying because only girls and wusses cried, though.

Heidi had held him for a long time, longer than she normally did, and then told him a story, one about a dragon and a bear and a prince named Evan who had together followed a treasure map through forests and across frozen seas on a mission to find the stolen toy truck of the young prince. They’d succeeded, of course, and Evan had smiled and cheered just like his mommy had wanted even though he didn’t really feel like it.

Evan decided that night as he lay in his bed that maybe he wasn’t very good at acting because his mommy had looked a little sad afterwards, her eyes upset despite the smile she was wearing when she’d given him another hug and a goodnight kiss and then told him she loved him all the way to the moon and back again.

Evan hadn’t gone to school the next day, he’d gone to the to the hospital instead.

He’d thought it a little exciting at the time, a day off school to go somewhere with his mommy was worth his still sore arm because they didn’t have that much time to spend together anymore. His mom had pretended to be happy too, she’d smiled warmly as he chatted and joined in with his games and nodded in interest at his stories, but when she thought he wasn’t looking, she would glance at the bruised, slightly swollen arm he was still favouring with blue eyes so sad Evan was scared she might be about to cry. He gave her a hug when he’d noticed and told her not to be so sad because he was okay, it didn’t hurt that much, he was just being a wuss.

Heidi hugged him again after that and told him she thought he was being very brave in a funny, too tight voice as she sniffled into his hair.

6-year-old Evan had ended up with a small blue cast and a sticker depicting a dancing skeleton with the words ‘I was brave in X-ray’ written underneath in spidery, red font. He’d spent the rest of the day with his mom, watching cartoons and playing with his trainset and his toy trucks and then Mark had brought take-away pizza home for dinner and then finally caved and the three of them had watched Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone, and despite the small ache in his wrist, it had been a really good afternoon.

Heidi had dug out the tiny cast to show him shortly after Evan had broken his wrist for the second time, and Evan had held it and traced a clammy finger over the names written in black marker on the blue fibreglass. His mom had signed it first, he remembered, and then his dad, and then Jared, and his older brother Jack, and Janet, and a couple of other kids in his class at school. Alana had. Evan had found her name in neat, careful lettering. Connor hadn’t.

The cast was cleaner and less picked at than his second one, the darker colour not showing the dirt and his small, six-year-old fingers yet to become anxious enough to ruin the edges with their relentless restlessness. It probably helped that Evan hadn’t had to wear that cast for long too, 4 weeks, his mom told him, because the fracture it splinted was minor and young children heal remarkably quickly.

Evan assumed young children must heal quickly emotionally too, because within a couple more weeks, he had been cautiously climbing through the entrance hole of the new safety net around Jared’s trampoline with just a little encouragement from his still slightly guilty looking friend.


	2. Age Seventeen

The second time Evan had broken his arm he had been 17 and had fallen from the tallest oak in Ellison State Park.

Well.

Not fallen, really, if he was being honest with himself.

He had lain on the ground afterwards, winded from the landing and in shock from the realisation of what he had just tried to do, and then, after that, once the numbness in his reeling mind and the numbness that wasn’t really numbness in his broken arm had faded, he had cried. His sobs were silent that time, his tears unaccompanied by sound as they traced salty trails down his grazed cheeks.

He’d cried as he waited for someone to find him, at first in pain and then in sorrow when he came to the realisation that no one was coming and that he was, as always, alone. Eventually he’d had to pick himself up from the dry grass of the forest floor and limp through the park back to the rangers’ hut where Tom had taken one long look at him and then told him to phone his mom and ask her to come and take him to the hospital.

Evan had sat in the kitchen for a good half an hour, a tea-towel wrapped ice-pack resting on his swelling left arm and his cheap, off-brand cell phone held in his one working hand as he tried with no success to contact his mom. Tom had given up eventually and driven Evan to the hospital himself. He had filled in the paperwork at reception despite it being Evan’s left hand that wasn’t working and then, after getting him settled in a corner of the waiting room and fetching him a bottle of water from the vending machine, he had wished him well and left to go back to the park.

Evan had waited in the ER for three hours, an ache in his head and his heart and a persistent, ever worsening throb in an arm that was starting to look awfully swollen before he had been called to see a doctor. The doctor had frowned at his arm, at the curve in his forearm that really shouldn’t be there, and then, after helping him into a white, cotton sling, had sent him for x-rays.

Having x-rays taken had hurt more than Evan remembered from before which did kind of make sense as the first time his arm had barely been broken, a small buckle fracture in his ulna, whereas the second time both long bones in his forearm had been fractured and the ends displaced, as he had later learned.

Having the x-rays taken took longer than he remembered too, and he’d sat there for what felt like hours wiping silent tears from pinched eyes with his shaking right hand as they positioned his arm this way and that to get the images they needed.

X-ray had been long, and painful, and he didn’t even get given a sticker at the end of it.

He had got a cast though, eventually, one that was plain white and boring and stark against his green, slightly bloodstained shirt because after he’d been given anaesthetic and morphine and spent a good while with two doctors manipulating his fractured ulna and radius back into position, he really, really hadn’t been in the mood to think about colours.

He’d napped on a cot in the ER afterwards, waiting there until his mom had finished her shift and arrived, expression pained and panicked, to collect him. She’d apologised for not being there for him almost as much as Jared had for pushing him off the trampoline all those years before.

The evening after his second fracture had been less fun that the first. The morphine and anesthetic had left him drowsy and dizzy and more than a little nauseous, and despite the painkillers he’d been given and the ice he had resting over his new cast, his arm had been throbbing. He’d gone to bed not long after they’d arrived home from the hospital, but that turned out not to have mattered as Heidi had been called back to the hospital soon afterwards.

She’d been frowning as she’d told him she needed to go, her expression concerned and conflicted, and he’d told her he was fine despite that not being all that true, and that he would probably just sleep anyway, and she’d smiled sadly and told him she loved him and gently carded a hand through his hair like she used to when he was ill and small, and then hurried away back to the hospital.

Evan hadn’t slept. He’d lay there feeling ill and sore and wishing sleep would come both because nothing could hurt when he slept and because he didn’t want to listen to the little dark voice at the back of his mind that told him just how close he’d come from making his mom’s life so much easier, so much better that day and reminded him of the new white medicine bottle on his bedside table rattling with prescription painkillers.

He didn’t want to listen to his anxiety either, or the logical part of his brain he should probably have listened to but hadn’t that told him what he had done was bad in terms of more than just their finances. It told him he really, really ought not to have lied when they’d asked how he’d broken his arm, too, because he very, very clearly was not in a good place mental health wise and was probably in desperate need of some help.

Evan had got that help, eventually. It came after saving the life of a classmate who had been in a not too dissimilar situation had put a lot of things into perspective. He’d seen Connor’s family cry at the hospital, his mom and his sister, and he’d seen his dad dry eyed but agitated, his expression grim and terrified, and he’d seen his own mom, so, so upset when she came to collect him. He’d felt her pull him into a hug so tight he was almost worried for the sake of his spine, heard her wetly mutter into his hair how relieved she was that he was okay despite him not having been in any danger that evening at all.

He was only at the hospital because they’d decided they needed to treat him for shock and for the panic attack he’d experienced shortly after the paramedics had finally got Connor stable and breathing once again.

Two days had passed in which Evan had fretted over both Connor and his own dubious mental health before, after a text from Zoe explaining Connor was awake and out of danger, Evan had finally caved and the dam had broken and through his tears he had admitted to him mom what he had tried to do.

They’d both spent an evening crying on the sofa, but at least they had then been crying together.

Coincidentally, Connor returned to school the day after Evan’s second cast came off, leaving behind an arm that was weak and pale and still a little tender but was medically considered healed. He’d told Connor so when he’d asked how it was after suddenly appearing behind Evan’s locker door while he’d had it open, and Connor had pointed out that it was a little like how he’d felt, too. He was medically okay, the doctors had told him so, but he still wasn’t really not okay at all.

Evan had licked his lips, unsure of what to say, and then switched topics and asked Connor why he was there, and Connor had admitted that his therapist had told him to talk to the boy who had saved his life, not to say thank you if that wasn’t what he wanted to say, but just to acknowledge what had happened. Evan had nodded and then said that saying thanks only really worked if being alive was what you wanted, and Connor had looked at him for a moment, his mismatched eyes calculating and thoughtful, and then agreed, and said he’d see him around.

It took little over two months for them to become firm friends and little longer than that for Evan, during a post panic attack trip to the orchard in which Connor had suggested tree climbing because Evan had said he liked to climb trees, to admit that maybe the fall from the oak that had resulted in the fractures in his forearm and the cast Connor had signed hadn’t really been as much of an accident as he’d made out. Connor had gently pulled him into a hug and held him tightly whilst tears Evan hadn’t meant to spill ruined the shoulder of Connor’s hoodie. Afterwards, when Evan’s eyes were red and swollen but finally dry, Connor had looked him straight in the eye and told him that what he had admitted changed nothing, partially because mental illnesses are not a reason to stop loving someone, and partially because he had guessed what had happened back during that first week of term when he had read a letter that hadn’t been written for him to read.

They had spent the afternoon in the orchard anyway, their feet firmly on the ground as they discussed life and death and the unexpected friendship that had grown even during the darkest of times.


	3. Age Eighteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The events of this chapter are also covered in 'the irony of branches', so this is a follow up of sorts to that. you don't need to have read it though.
> 
> Find me on tumblr as Bumblie-Bee :)

The third time Evan had broken his arm, he had been 18, and like the time before, it had been caused by a fall from a tree.

That time had been different to the time before though, both because that time his fall really had been an accident, and more importantly because that time, he hadn’t been alone.

He had been at the orchard, with Connor, where they had sat in the fresh spring grass and chatted and laughed and listened to music and enjoyed the view, and then Evan had followed his friend across a yellow field to a beautiful, green leaved oak that sat at the edge. Together, they had climbed it.

From up in the branches, they had looked over the forest below, felt the warm sun on their faces, smelt the pollen in the light early summer breeze, and Connor had commented on how they could see for so, so far. How they could see almost for forever. And Evan had laughed, and agreed, and said it was beautiful, and then there had been a crack.

And then he had been falling.

He’d ended up on the forest floor again, winded and in pain and with his stunned mind reeling because the position he had found himself in was so, so similar to one he had been in only eight months before. Just like then, his wrist had been burning with a numbness that wasn’t really numbness at all and his head had been throbbing and his chest had been aching because somewhere between the winding and the panic attack, he hadn’t been able to remember how to breathe.

It hadn’t quite been the same as before though. That time he hadn’t been alone, and so Connor had been beside him in an instant. 

Connor had helped him to sit and reminded him how to breathe and held him in his arms until the worst of his panic had passed and his pain had receded enough for him to come back to himself just a little.

After checking he was near enough okay with painfully concerned eyes, he’d fashioned a sling from his soft, grey hoodie and helped Evan lift his throbbing and very clearly broken left arm into it. Evan had protested, said he’d stain the hoodie with blood and suggested they use his own, but he had been shivering, from shock rather than cold, and Connor had point blank refused.

Connor had helped him to his feet afterwards, and then, with a pale arm looped around his waist, he’d supported Evan as he limped back through the forest towards the small, blue car that waited for them in the parking lot. The walk had been slow and unpleasant and painful but at least he’d had Connor beside him to take some of the weight from his shaking legs and steady him when he stumbled.

Evan had rested his aching head against the cool glass of the passenger window as Connor had taken him to the hospital, driving faster than was legal but with such care to avoid the potholes after the jolt of the car at the one he’d hit had drawn a small and quiet but unsuppressible whimper from Evan’s bitten lips.

That time, it had been Connor who filled in the forms at the hospital. The boxes had been ticked and allergies noted with no questions because unlike Tom who had filled in the same form on Evan’s behalf little over eight months ago, Connor already knew the answers.

He hadn’t deposited Evan in a chair in the corner of the ER before leaving like Tom had either. Instead, he had stayed, and although just like eight months before, the wait in the ER had been long and uncomfortable, at least Evan had had someone beside. He’d had Connor who’d regularly checked he was as okay as he could be and muttered comforts and talked with forced calmness about anything and everything that came to mind in a hope of distracting Evan from even a little of his pain. It hadn’t really worked; his arm had throbbed even when still and burnt when jostled, and even moving his fingers or thumb had sent sharp tendrils of fire up and down his arm, but Evan had tried not to let it show.

He’d been very aware that his pain hurt Connor just as much as it hurt himself.

As upset and uncomfortable and pained as Connor looked, though, he had stayed. He had stayed whilst Evan waited in the ER, and he had sat beside him when hours later he found himself in a small office with a white-coat wearing doctor who examined his bumped head and throbbing arm and then, understandably, booked him an x-ray, and he had stayed while a junior doctor helped clean the blood from his forehead and seal the wound with steri-strips. 

Connor had stayed beside him as he walked down to the radiology department, and he had helped Evan sort out his paperwork at the desk, and he had waited with him in the small waiting room filled with people with slings and casts and splints for his name to be called. 

Connor hadn’t been allowed in the x-ray suite, but he had still been there when Evan emerged shaking and nauseous an unknown amount of time later, and he had given him a hug and wiped the last of his tears from his cheek and that had made the pain just a little more bearable than it had been the time before. 

Eventually, Evan had been called into the orthopaedic consultation room, and there, the middle aged, ginger haired doctor had asked what had happened and frowned sympathetically at the answer and then turned back to his computer to find the results of Evan’s x-rays. He had frowned at the images too when he’d seen them, and even Evan, distracted by the pain and drowsy from the painkillers and with mind still reeling as he processed what had happened, had been able to see why he was frowning.

Evan had sat there with a chest that suddenly felt an awful lot tighter because, while the two obviously displaced breaks weren’t exactly where they had been only eight months before, they were still awfully close. They were close enough that keeping his breathing in a rhythm that could be considered even vaguely normal had suddenly become a much harder task than it should have been.

He hadn’t caught what the doctor had said as he pointed to the fractures with his pen; the rushing in his ears would had been much too loud to hear the words even if he hadn’t been much too distracted by the image on the screen to put even an ounce of concentration into understanding whatever it was was being explained.

Connor, his brow furrowed somehow further in concern, had turned to him and sent him a sympathetic glance and given the hand held in his a squeeze and Evan had forced himself to squeeze back as he knew that was what Connor needed.

It was what Connor had deserved, too, because although Evan had managed to fracture his wrist again after a fall from the sprawled branches of an oak, at least that time, he hadn’t been alone.

Connor had sat beside him as the doctor explained the fractures and the plan for reducing them. He grounded Evan with a hand and asked questions where he thought they needed asking and made sure Evan understood what was happening through his daze, but then, after Evan had numbly agreed that attempting to fix everything non-surgically first was the best option, Connor had been asked to leave.

He hadn’t argued, not for long anyway, instead he’d given Evan’s hand one final squeeze and told him he would be just outside, and then, after a bang of the door Evan hardly heard, had finally been alone.

His hand had felt oddly cold without Connor’s.

It hadn’t taken Evan long to work out why the doctor wanted him alone; he had opened the conversation by asking Evan if he knew that it was possible to see the scars of previous fractures, and then, when Evan hadn’t found the words to answer, he had launched into questions on Evan’s previous break and what had happened to cause it.

Evan had told him a half truth, told him he’d fallen from a tree, and the doctor had nodded in a way that made it very much look like he hadn’t believed him at all, and then changed the direction of conversation onto Evan’s medications instead.

“You’re currently taking Buspirone and Zoloft, correct?” he had asked, “for severe anxiety and depression?” and Evan had said yes because he had to, because he knew the doctor was only asking that because he already knew the answer.

He’d wished he’d been able to answer no, though, because although he understood that mental health was complicated and that having struggled with it was nothing to be ashamed of, it was still sometimes hard to apply that to himself. Connor never hid his arms, and yet Evan still found it hard to even look at the small scar on his forehead that remained the only visible evidence of his fall.

Accepting what he had tried to do had been something he had been working on with Dr Ashwell, though; it was important according to his therapist, but that didn’t mean he wanted to discuss his still fragile mental health with a new, unknown doctor.

He’d cracked eventually, though, and admitted through silent tears how he’d really broken his arm the time before, and although he’d explained that his mom knew and that he was in therapy and on new medications and that no longer wanted what he had wanted before, the doctor had ordered him a psyc consult.

Connor’s expression had fallen when he‘d been allowed back into the room, the brow over his mismatched eyes furrowing as he took in Evan’s blotchy eyes and tear-stained sleeves and the damp tissues he was clutching in his right hand and Evan had wondered if maybe he should have accepted Dr Jones’ offer and taken a few minutes to calm down before seeing Connor. He had been upset, though, and his arm had been hurting and the idea of Connor and the comfort he would bring had outridden the embarrassment of his tears.

Connor hadn’t asked what had happened as he’d sat back down, and he hadn’t asked if Evan was okay, and he hadn’t asked him why he was crying. They were questions Evan knew he already knew the answers to. Instead, he’d reached over and brushed a missed tear from his cheek and then tenderly took Evan’s hand in his drier one. He’d held on tight despite the tissue that had become lodged between their palms.

Evan, selfishly, had hoped he would never let go.

In the wait between Evan learning for sure that his arm was broken again and the fixing of said arm, there had been a phone call from Heidi. She’d sounded concerned and more than a little panicked as she asked him if he was okay by way of greeting, and Evan had known she’d only just found the time to check her phone and read the typo-ridden text he’d sent her back in the ER. Evan had told her he was okay and that Connor was with him and then, after telling him she was glad he was near enough okay, she’d asked him what had happened.

“I fell, out of a tree,” Evan had said, and then there had been a pause, static filling the line in place of his mom’s response. “Mom, it’s- I actually fell. This time. I- I was up there with Connor and then the branch snapped.”

Heidi had taken a moment to reply, but when she had, she’d sounded more than a little relieved and said, “okay, honey,” like she believed him and asked if Connor had fallen too. 

“That’s-” Heidi had started after he’d told her Connor was okay, before she’d broken off and huffed a small, sad sort of laugh. “I was going to say that’s good, but- well, I guess it’s still better than you both falling.”

Evan had found himself letting out a wet sort of chuckle too and then looked up at Connor. He was pale and the smile he’d returned never reached his eyes, but he was at least unharmed. Evan would have taken the throbbing broken arm any day over Connor being the one to fall. “Yeah, definitely,” he’d agreed, wishing he could give Connor’s hand a comforting squeeze at the questioning frown he’d got. “I’m … I’m pleased he’s okay.”

“So am I, honey,” Heidi had sighed in response. “I just wish you were too.”

They’d talked for a while and although there had been times when a yell in the background on the other end of the line had made Evan sure the call was about to disconnect with a garbled apology, it hadn’t. Heidi had instead stayed with him. She’d asked if he’d been seen in the ER, and then if his arm had been x-rayed yet, and then, when he said he had and that he’d seen a specialist afterwards too, she’d asked what he had said. Evan had tried to repeat to her what his doctor had told him, but he’d barely heard what had been said himself and the sense of panic that brewed in his gut at the thought of the radiograph hadn’t really been helping him think straight. 

“It’s- it’s pretty bad, mom. It’s like before,” Evan had found himself admitting in a suddenly chocked, shaking voice, and Connor’s hand had twitched against his thigh. Evan had known it would be holding his if he’d had one to spare.

Heidi had winced down the phone line.

“Oh, Evan,” she’d said, tone heavy with sympathy and understanding and then, without even a second’s pause, she’d offered to come from work to be with him.

“You have work,” he’d protested, and she’d sighed his name down the phone, quietly dismissing his argument with one word. It was an argument the came from a habit born of years of being let down by a mom who was just trying to do her best for him, and although he then knew he was worth her time, it was still sometimes a struggle for him, and her, to remember that there were more important things than money. Things were tight, they always were, but not tight enough that Heidi couldn’t take a few hours to sit with her son at the hospital.

“Sorry,” he’d muttered, his apology honest rather than out of habit like at one point they had always been. “I- thank you. I- I think I’m okay though, Connor’s here.”

“As long as you’re sure?” Heidi had asked, and Evan had smiled into the phone despite himself.

“Yeah, I’m sure, but I’ll- I’ll call you if anything changes,” he’d said, and then he’d paused, summoned the courage he needed. “Mom, they- um, they want to do a psych consult,” he’d admitted, and then before his mom could say anything added, “because- because of last time. They- the doctor asked what happened. He could see where it was broken before and-”

“Honey, it’s okay,” she’d soothed, gently interrupting his spiralling. “It’s understandable they want to do that; they’re just making sure you’re safe, and, Evan, whatever the outcome of that is, it’s okay, too. I love you whatever they say. But if what you’re told me is true-”

“It is-”

“-then I don’t think you have anything to worry about. You’re doing better, right?” she’d asked, her tone light and genuinely asking rather than just hoping for confirmation.

Evan had been so, so relived he hadn’t had to lie.

Their conversation had eventually been interrupted by Connor gently tapping on Evan’s upper arm, and when he’d looked up, he’d found a nurse standing before him who’d said that they were ready for him in the fracture clinic.

They’d said their goodbyes; Heidi had promised to see him soon and reminded him she would be there in an instant if he wanted her, and Evan had promised to call as soon as he could to let her know how he was and then told her to try not to worry.

Heidi had sighed through the phone. “I will never not worry about you, Evan,” she’d told him firmly but in a way which more sounded like she worried because she loved him rather than because she was scared for him like was how they always used to sound. “Now go and get your arm fixed. I love you, remember, so much.”

Evan had told her he knew and that he loved her too, and then he’d ended the call and pocketed his phone and allowed Connor to take his hand and help him get slowly and stiffly to his feet. Their hands hadn’t parted even as they followed the nurse back to the doctor's office. 

Just as Evan had feared, the realigning of his fractures was awful even with the local anaesthetic and the painkillers and the gas and air, and just like the time before, he’d winced, and whimpered, and cried, and failed to stop the hot tears of pain falling from his tightly closed eyes.

Unlike the time before though, he hadn’t been alone. Connor had sat close beside him and held his hand and muttered soft words of comfort whilst the doctors probed and pulled and slowly manipulated Evan’s fractured bones back into position.

Afterwards, when his arm was throbbing awfully but straight and splinted, Connor had put his arm around his shoulders and gently pulled him close and Evan had ended up with his head rested against a pointy shoulder. He’d stayed there with his salt-sticky eyes closed as he waited for the pain radiating from his fractured wrist to fade to something a little more bearable. Between the pain and his reeling mind, it had taken him much longer than it should have to notice that it wasn’t just his own hands that were shaking, and when he’d looked up through salty lashes, he’d found that Connor’s mismatched eyes were wide and more than a little haunted.

Evan had almost regretted not trying harder to make him leave.

Connor had given him a sad smile when Evan told him so and given his hand a squeeze and said that even though he’d hated seeing Evan hurting so, he was relieved to know he hadn’t had to go through it alone.

He’d stayed whilst the specialist casted Evan’s arm too, smiling in a forced sort of way at Evan’s comment on his choice in colour, and sat and listened whilst the doctor explained prescriptions and follow-up appointments and the importance of rest and ice and keeping the cast dry, and he’d stayed close beside him whilst they waited for a doctor to come down from psychiatric department.

It was during that wait that Heidi had arrived, and she’d waved off Evan’s concern about missed work and drawn him into a careful hug instead. She’d held him for a long time, muttering her love and concern and upset over how much worse it could have been into his hair, and then, when she finally released him, she’d gathered herself a little and then fussed over his broken arm and winced at his x-rays and brushed a worried thumb over the steri-strips closing the wound on his slowly bruising forehead.

Both Connor and Heidi had still been there when the doctor arrived from the psychiatric department, and both had still been waiting outside the room when Evan emerged twenty minutes later shaken by his consult and still in pain but deemed mentally okay and physically ready to go home.

Evan had spent that evening on the sofa. There had been a blanket on his knees and a cushion behind his back and an icepack laying over the cast as it rested on a pillow. Just like the time before, his broken wrist had ached and his ribs had been sore and his still tender head had been meandering and slow from the painkiller. That time, though it had also been rested on Connor’s shoulder as he sat beside him, and although it shouldn’t have been brilliantly comfortable, Connor’s shoulders were bony and pointy and just a little too high for Evan’s head to rest properly against them, it had been perfect all the same.

Unlike last time, Heidi had been there too. Her shift had ended early, or maybe just on time rather than late, and so instead of spending her early evening at work, she’d been at home cooking dinner. She had hummed and chatted and quipped lightly on the drama in the repeat of White Collar that was playing on the telly as she’d cooked and while it had been partially an act, she was still troubled by the reminder of just how fragile and unsure life could be and likely guiltily remembering the evening of his previous fracture, she had been trying and there and he’d appreciated that.

A little later, when dinner was simmering on the stove, Heidi had joined him and Connor on the sofa and together they had sat there under a blanket and pretended to watch the screen. Heidi’s eyes had been on Evan instead, and her hand had been on his knee as though checking he was still really there, and although Connor had appeared to be watching, Evan knew he really wasn’t. It had been a hard day for him too.

Evan hadn’t been watching the telly either; he had been too tired to pay attention, too slow to follow the plot, and sure he wouldn’t be awake for much more of the episode anyway. His head had been comfortable against Connor’s pointy shoulder, and his mom had been warm at his side, and although Evan had been tired and sore and shaken, but he’d also known from experience it could have been worse.

He could have been alone.


	4. Epilogue

Evan owns three casts.

One is small and blue and covered with the untidy scrawl of six year olds. A message from his mom in on there too, her hope that he feels better soon and a reminder that she loves him decorates the underside just below its thumb. His dad’s hurried drawing of a train is small and messy more from lack of time than skill.

The second is bigger and white and defaced with one name scrawled across the front in bold black marker. The fiberglass is peeling, the edges tired after eight weeks of being assaulted by anxious, relentlessly restless finger, and up by the thumb is a spot of red Heidi had tried and tried and tried but ultimately been unable to get rid of. 

The third is similarly sized as the second, maybe a little longer but thinner if one where to carefully compare the two. It’s brighter in colour, though, the fibreglass a warm orange in place of the white, and unlike the others, it’s almost entirely covered in sharpie.

Connor’s name had been the first, that time written smaller and neater, the letters less of an urgent need to make one last mark on the world and more of friendship, and Jared had signed a few days later during a visit to Evan’s house to drop of the school work he was missing. It had taken Evan until the next day to notice that beneath Jared’s name, in font so small even he struggled to read it, he had written “Be careful, acorn. SERIOUSLY!!” and drawn a frowny sort of face that made the message seem almost like a threat. It hadn’t been a threat though, Evan knew Jared cared even if he had a funny way of showing it.

Alana had written her name when she’d stopped by to visit, along with ‘get well soon’ in neat, deep purple letters, and Zoe had signed in silver marker and then surrounded her name in a tiny ring of gold and silver stars.

Just like she had on his first cast, his mom had written a note telling him she loved him and always would, although that time it had been up by his elbow, out of easy view of prying eyes but easy for him to see as a reminder of what he already knew to be true.

There’s been no signature from his dad that time, but it didn’t matter. Not at all.

Most of the fibreglass, though, is filled with drawings.

A couple are by Jared, his first had been of a suspiciously suggestive cactus he had drawn during his visit on the first of the few days Evan had been off school. Evan had choked on his water when he’d seen it and ended up with his head in his hands, shaking with slightly distressed laughter whilst Jared tried to keep a straight face as he asked what was so funny. Connor sighed and called him a dick and asked Evan if he wanted him to punch him.

Alana hadn’t seemed to know what to think of it at all.

She’d drawn on the cast too, a tiny, impressively detailed diagram showing the bones in the arm and wrist complete with labels and, after asking his permission, the locations of his fractures. Evan hadn’t been sure at first, but then he’d read the fact she’d written underneath and found a new love for her.

_Bones heal stronger than they were before they broke xx_

Evan had asked her if it was true afterwards, and she’d nodded and explained the biology behind it, and then pointed out that it wasn’t bones that do it. People learn from their mistakes, she said, and if they heal right, they can grow stronger from them.

Zoe had drawn a little cartoon of all of them standing in a line, arms around each other shoulders and grins on their faces. She’d apologised for it afterwards, explained that her artistic talents laid firmly in music and that Connor was the artist in the family and although she had been right in saying it wasn’t the best of drawings, her own eyes were a little wonky and Connor was too tall and Jared’s head was too big (although Evan wasn’t entirely sure that was a mistake), it was still amazing and one Evan looked upon more than fondly because it was of a friendship group he never thought he’d have.

Connor had filled the rest of the space.

There are doodles of animals and people and plants and comics of little cartoon versions of Evan and Connor, and right on the front of the cast, there's a tree. It that had taken hours and hours of Connors time, each branch and leaf and flower drawn in brilliant detail on the orange fibreglass so that it looked almost like a silhouette in front of a setting sun. Evan hadn’t been sure about the orange until that moment; he had picked it because it was Connor’s favourite colour, but then afterwards, when he wasn’t high on gas and air and morphine, he’d realised it was very bright against his blue shirts. The drawing had settled his worries though, both because it looked amazing and because the memories of sunsets watched in the orchard it brought back were equally beautiful. 

Evan’s favourite, though, is a small, simply drawn envelope. He doesn’t know exactly when Connor had drawn it; he thinks it might have taken him a while to notice, but when he had found it, he’d turned to Connor and asked him what it was.

“It’s an invitation,” Connor had said simply, suddenly looking a little flushed and nervous, and Evan had frowned and asked what to.

“To ugh- to a date.”

“A- a date?” Evan had stuttered quietly, staring up at Connor with wide eyes, and Connor had looked away, down at his hands, and then very shyly and unsurely asked him if he wanted to go out with him.

“It’s- ugh- it’s okay if you don’t want to,” he’d backtracked moments later, “or if you don’t feel that way, we can just like- keep being friends but- well, after that day in the orchard I couldn’t not ask. Ugh life’s short, you know, and um-”

“Connor, stop,” Evan had interrupted, taking Connor’s hand in his. It had been shaking lightly and almost clammy with nerves and Evan was sure his own had been too. Eventually, Connor’s mismatched eyes had lifted to meet his own. “I’m- of course I’m saying yes. I’d-” he‘d smiled shyly- “I’d really like that.”

Two days later, they’d had their date. It had been simple, and honest, and very them. There had been a meal, one home cooked and simple and kept warm in flasks and eaten on a patchwork blanket spread over dry summer grass. They had stayed sat together in the orchard after the meal was eaten, talking and laughing and holding each other as the sun set and then together, they had waited for the stars.

There had been a meteor shower that night, and they had watched it laying on the blanket, swaddled in throws and warming themselves with the rich hot chocolate Connor had packed. Connor’s arm had been round Evan’s shoulders, and beneath the blankets their hands had been entwined.

It had been perfect.

“I guess Jared was right,” Evan had said eventually, interrupting the breeze, and at Connor’s questioning frown, he had wriggled his left arm free of the blanked and tapped the uneven, crudely drawn heart he had scribbled almost on top of the tree. There was a crossbow drawn through the middle and their initials were inside it, and at the time it had earnt an eye roll from Connor and a flush from Evan, but maybe Jared had just been better at seeing what they had spent so long trying to deny.

“Is it bad I wish he wasn’t out of spite?” Connor had asked softly with a frown before his further words were lost against Evan’s lips.

“Hey, you’re free.”

Evan turned to find Connor in his doorway, and he held up his left hand and wriggled his fingers in confirmation. They were a little stiff, and the wrist below was paler and thinner than the other, but after nine weeks beneath the cast he had expected nothing else.

“Yeah, finally,” he said with a smile, and then turned back to the shelf above his desk and placed the third cast up beside the others. It was odd to put them on display, he knew, but at the same time, it seemed right.

They stood there in a row, blue then white then orange, three casts, each significant, each a snapshot of his life immortalised in fibreglass.

The memories they held weren’t all good, even the one from when he was tiny showed the frustration of his friend and the dismissal of his dad, and the second, the one in the middle, was from a time in his life he almost wanted never to have happened.

It had happened though; he was coming to accept that, and despite the trauma the memories that cast held, Evan was aware it led to good, too. It had given Connor a reason to talk to him, and that had started a conversation and a friendship that had possibly saved both of their lives.

Evan found himself almost smiling at it.

“You’ve come really far, you know?” Connor said softly as he appeared at Evan’s shoulder and snuck an arm around his waist. His soft hair ticked Evan’s check as he leant his head into his shoulder.

“Yeah, I guess I have,” he agreed, looking up at the casts on the shelf with a smile before reaching up to press a kiss to Connor’s cheek. Connor’s mismatched eyes, like his own, were bright and happy and alive when Evan leaned back to catch them. They no longer held the anger they had when they’d first met, and they weren’t bleary like they’d been as he skirted unconsciousness that day during the first week at school, and they weren’t empty with hopelessness as they had been when Evan had first visited him in the hospital.

Connor was right when he said Evan had come a long way since he had first broken his arm at six, and even further since the break at 17, but it wasn’t just him whose growth was shown buy those last two casts.

Evan smiled, feeling warm and happy and alive, and looked up at the casts on his shelf. They stood in a line, one blue, one white, one orange, and together they told a tale.

It wasn’t a tale that was just his, though.

Not anymore.

He looked away from the shelf and turned properly to Connor, taking in his bright eyes and healthy skin and clean, cared for hair, and the soft, questioning look he was wearing. “But you know, you’ve come so far too,” he said and took Connor’s warm hands in his and nodded up at the middle cast and the bold black name defacing it. “We both have.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> Kudos and Comments are loved <3


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